A rare visitor

Wow - how incredibly lucky you are. Any photos or are you like me - camera in the wrong place/has the wrong lens on/etc./etc.

No I do have some photos - but they are not very good. I am not sure how to link to this site but I will try to do that.

 

 

Here you are. Posted to the gallery here. Not very good as I don't have a long lens for this digital camera:

 

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/media/p/29401.aspx

http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/media/p/29400.aspx

Superb photos - thank you so much for sharing. I don't see sparrowhawks around here but two red kites are regular visitors. Not to my garden, I should add, but they "quarter" or "figure of eight" it from the air. So far, except for on one occasion, they have always been too high to get a decent photo. Sadly, on the one occasion that one did come really low (and I mean really low) I was pegging out washing - not something normally done with a camera slung around one's neck "just in case".

I don't get kites in my part of the world - West of Scotland - but the buzzards have been hovering over the house recently. I remember an incident a couple of years ago when working in my garden, a couple of crows chased a buzzard between my house and the neighbours and came to ground across the street at the side of another neighbour. They were fighting over some prey!

Thanks for the superb photos do you live near open land, -- this is a beautiful bird, -- but not one I would want

visiting  my garden, I DO  live by open land and have sparrows  woodpeckers, goldfinches, bluetits starlings,bue collared doves, swallows,  swifts  and pigeons, -- and get very upset when a bird is hurt as I am sure we all do, -- not much you can do if the Sparrowh

Unknown said:

I returned home form work one day last week and thought that I saw a pigeon on my lawn. When I looked more closely I discovered that it was a Sparrowhawk feeding on a young bird. I watched this bird for almost an hour and it seemed completely unperturbed by the fact that I was less than 3 metres from it.

Once it had finished its meal it flew off on to a low fence in the garden and remained there for a further 3.0 minutes at least.

While I have had kestrals in the garden previously and buzzards are common over the house, this was a first with the Sparrowhawk.

I was dead chuffed :-)

Unknown said:

I returned home form work one day last week and thought that I saw a pigeon on my lawn. When I looked more closely I discovered that it was a Sparrowhawk feeding on a young bird. I watched this bird for almost an hour and it seemed completely unperturbed by the fact that I was less than 3 metres from it.

Once it had finished its meal it flew off on to a low fence in the garden and remained there for a further 3.0 minutes at least.

While I have had kestrals in the garden previously and buzzards are common over the house, this was a first with the Sparrowhawk.

I was dead chuffed :-)

Unknown said:

I returned home form work one day last week and thought that I saw a pigeon on my lawn. When I looked more closely I discovered that it was a Sparrowhawk feeding on a young bird. I watched this bird for almost an hour and it seemed completely unperturbed by the fact that I was less than 3 metres from it.

Once it had finished its meal it flew off on to a low fence in the garden and remained there for a further 3.0 minutes at least.

While I have had kestrals in the garden previously and buzzards are common over the house, this was a first with the Sparrowhawk.

I was dead chuffed :-)

awk is already feeding though, -- it would otherwise get short shrift in my garden with a good bast of water from the garden hose, --not cruel  just protecting the other birds. 

Nice one Hutcheson & well done on getting some pics! It's a real privileg to have such a bird come & visit your garden! I know that one has been in mine a few times as have found the tell-tale pile of feathers from plucking but never been lucky enough to see it! Thanks for sharing!